In-vehicle devices, such as televisions, radios, and computers are becoming increasingly popular for use with automobiles, trucks, vans, and recreational vehicles such as campers and boats. Such in-vehicle devices, including Internet-enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs) and wireless cellular telephones, are also being integrated with modern vehicles. Consequently, car, truck, van, and motor home manufacturers and suppliers have become increasingly aware of the need to provide for the installation or accommodation of various electronic devices, particularly video screens (e.g., television) in their automobiles. Thus, attempts are currently being made to equip modern vehicles with high-technology communication systems, which can permit consumers to convert previously wasted commuting time into productive work or entertainment hours. It is anticipated that multimedia technologies will advance tremendously in the coming years, and that so-called “telematics” (i.e., in-vehicle multi-media and telecommunications systems) will increasingly become a part of everyday vehicle usage.
One of the problems that modern in-vehicle devices and systems face is the inability to seamlessly provide data to a mobile user. For example, a radio or television viewer in an automobile typically experiences fading signals as the automobile moves out of the coverage area of a broadcast station. The listener or viewer is thereafter forced to manually search for a new station that may broadcast the same program, if one is available. This can be a time consuming, distracting and even dangerous task, particularly on a busy highway.
Various types of solutions to this problem have been proposed. For example, so-called “Web agents” have been proposed for assisting mobile wireless users in receiving data such as radio and television programs. In such configurations, an agent associated with the user can be utilized to send the location of the user from a GPS locator positioned within a cellular phone, along with a user's music profile to a radio station index agent. The radio station index agent then can return a list of the best matching radio stations to the mobile user, including current play lists. Such a “Web agent,” if in communication with an in-vehicle computer could be utilized for automatically tuning radio stations.
The problem with the use of “Web agents” is that such devices do not result in the seamless receipt of broadcasts at the location of the mobile user. These type of agents fail to utilize information implicit in the user's current tuning of his/her radio/television and to utilize recent historical information regarding the location of the user. In addition, these types of agents may rely solely on GPS information in locating the user. For users, GPS may simply not be available.
The ability to provide the seamless transmission of desired data, such as a favorite television or radio program, presents a challenge that until now has not been adequately addressed. The present inventors have thus concluded, based on the foregoing, that a genuine need exists for improved in-vehicle devices and systems thereof that can permit continued program listening, viewing and other multimedia experiences for a mobile user. A method and systems are thus disclosed herein for seamlessly broadcasting user-selected data to a user moving among a plurality of broadcast coverage areas.